


Breathless

by corellians_only



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Kissing in the Rain, Light Angst, Near Death Experience, Sexual Tension, car kissing, cw: smoking, inspired by 90s ewan, intellectual ben kenobi, lifeguard obi-wan, obi-wan has game
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 08:07:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25540018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corellians_only/pseuds/corellians_only
Summary: after a near-death experience, you find out that aloof lifeguard Ben Kenobi is more like you than you thought
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Reader, Obi-Wan Kenobi/You
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25





	1. Chapter 1

“Sorry about your cigarette,” you mumble, crossing your arms to ward off the chill. your eyes focus on a triad of water droplets suspended on his left bicep even as he takes another step closer, vaporizing the gap between you.

“ ‘s not a problem,” he returns with a half-grin. It makes you weak. It shouldn’t. But it does. A new feeling is rapidly bubbling up to replace the onslaught of adrenaline. Effervescent heat starts fermenting in your core — he runs a hand through shaggy hair, now limp and loose around his face — he reaches around you — his palm skates over your bare arm — he’s looking at you perplexed, repeating his question more insistently now.

“would you like one? A cigarette?”

your brain — your eyes, really — toggles between his azure eyes and the pack of Marlboro’s now secure, comfortable, in his palm. His fingers, still damp judging by the condition of the cardboard, are extended towards you, a link, a bridge — an offering? — in that charged space between you and him. His eyes drag themselves from the cigarette curled in his fingers ((what would it feel like to have his fingers curled around your wrist, around your—)) to your face in time to catch your nod.

He watches you. Watches you pluck the white stick from his fingers. Watches you place it to your lips. Watches you lean forward, this time foisting yourself into his space, that forbidden no-man’s-land. Watches you watch him — he’s fumbling with the lighter, more awkward now that he’s not in the water — he’s got it now, the flame appearing with a muted click, and he’s raising the fire to your lips ((you haphazardly wish he would set you on fire in a different way)) — you inhale and close your eyes as the heady scent fills you.

Reluctantly you take a step back, exhaling the smoke and turning your head as you do so to avoid his face. The wind changes, though — what’s that they say about the best-laid plans? — and it’s thrown back into him and he splutters and coughs, pausing his own efforts. your jaw drops. Aw, hell.

“This just doesn’t seem to be my day, does it?” The remark, and your self-deprecating smile, brings a hitherto unseen light to his eyes. Something more than interest, more than mischievousness. maybe it’s both. Maybe it’s neither. his rejoinder is too quick for you to angst over it for more than a moment.

“why would you say that?” the cigarette twirls in his hand, like that kid who sits behind you in geometry does with his pencil when he’s bored. There’s no accusation dancing at the edge of his tone.

you shrug. Squint as the sun starts to make an appearance again. “Well, I nearly drowned, for starters” you drawl. His eyes, those ungodly aquamarine orbs, are boring into you, so you take another drag of your cigarette. Christ. It’s been a while.

“Near-drowning is a pretty low threshold for a shitty day.” The upwards lilt of his voice tells you he’s just messing around, so you roll your eyes. A thought seizes you.

“Well, I do you have you to thank for the ‘nearly’ part, don’t I?” you muse, matching his airy, unaffected tone. It’s your turn to examine him, now, and you rake your eyes over his form, patches of corded muscle still wet, glistening in the sun.

from the corner of eye you see him bite his lip. another impulse screams at you and you listen. You reach out and tug the lighter from his grasp — his hand clutches at the now-phantom object, reaching at nothingness — you take his other hand, the one with the Marlboro, and raise it to his lips — you murmur a few words that cause his eyebrows to shoot up in gentle surprise.

“Will you permit me?”

he nods ((once, twice, rapidly, easily)) and maybe you’re a fool but it seems like his breath hitches and his eyes flicker down to your lips when you light his cigarette.

He nods again, this time in thanks. He tosses the pack onto the table, and the lighter joins it quickly thereafter. it’s the least you could do, you say, as though you did this sort thing — share cigarettes with attractive half clothed life guards — all the time. Maybe you did, in another life. He wouldn’t know.

“I’m Ben.”

“Hi.”

there’s a silence. a few heart beats? half-dozen light years? You’ll never know. He runs his hand through his long hair again ((not quite to his collarbone, but shit, it’s better looking than yours)) and you says something that gives rise to a smirk playing across his diamond-cut features.

“I already know who you are.” Another long drag. A sidelong glance. Strains of The Cranberries waft over the iron fence. He shrugs. Another drag, maybe two. “I like the Indigo Girls better.” Another pause. “But Rites of Passage was better than Swamp Ophelia.”

“1200 Curfews is the best of both.” your eyes narrow. “Don’t avoid the topic, Ben. How’d you know who I was?”

A toss and vigorous stamp of your foot and your cigarette joins his, dead in the dirt.

He laughs and the heat in your stomach is back ((did it ever go away)) and it’s creeping through your rib cage straight to your heart and it’s climbing through you and creeping to your fingertips and trickling down to everywhere, everywhere and you grasp onto the table behind you with urgency and it’s all you can do stand upright, damnit and the rickety table sways under the sudden stress.

Hands — strong, sweet ((can hands be sweet)) immediately reach out to steady you, clutching your forearms, holding you in place — pinning you down, ((god you wish)) — thumbs caress your muscled shoulders in small circles — his head is bent, obscuring his vision — trying to get a better look at you — you nod, yes you’re okay, if you really knew me you’d know I was a klutz — he nods — smirks — he already knew that, knew you.

“You’ve been at the pool nearly every day this summer.”

once more he reaches around you and this time, Ben emerges with a towel. He wraps it around you gently, authoritatively, no doubt having noticed the goosebumps on your sensitive flesh. a hand tugs at the edges of the cotton cloth near your neck, dragging it back from slipping off completely. It lingers. He meets your eyes for the first time in what feels like years. You can breathe again now.

“Even if your head’s been buried in books, your friends, they’re still talking about you. Trying to get your attention.” He cants his head. “So how’s _The End of History_ ? Worth the hype?” Hands are near, around you, always. Chlorine and salt and sweat and cigarettes envelop you both, heavy, but not cloying.

“You know Fukuyama?” he simply looks at you and nods. “Well, he makes an interesting argument, but I don’t think he adequately rejects Huntington’s thesis.”

Ben smiles, a brilliant, radiant act that could act as your life force for days, you’re sure of it, you would do anything to make sure he smiled like this the rest of his life, he’s so beautiful. “Wise words from a wise woman.”

A man — boy? — yells over the fence — hey, kenobi! — that politics and diplomacy never won over any girls, tell her about the time in the Sheddu Maad neighborhood — he ducks his head — tells Anakin to shove off, mate, leave it alone.

You laugh at his embarrassment, only detectable because you’ve been analyzing him, only because he seems to make sense to you the way no one else does, only because he saved your life, how the hell would you know?

A hand scratches the back of his neck. “You wanna get out of here?” Ben ignores the jibing of his friend and speaks quietly, assuredly, like he knows you’ll say yes.

The fire surges in you again and you wonder what it would be like for that voice to tell you to hold still and you haven’t even finished giving form and sound to your assent when he’s wresting the towel off of your shoulders and pulling the baggy white lifeguarding t shirt over your head and his muscles are bunching with the effort ((and for your benefit, you suspect)).

The towel gets draped gracefully over a lightly tanned arm, the cigarettes and lighter and keys tossed into the pocket of his now-dry swim trunks, your book is secured in the crook of an elbow.

Ben grabs your hand and starts leading you to his car with an errant grin ((shit, he’s strong)). It’s a make and model you don’t recognize. He makes quick work of the necessities, tossing notebooks and periodicals and a set of brass knuckles into the backseat. the towel and your book join the island of misfits, but he’s more careful about those things. he’s like you. He doesn’t do this often. More interested in words and cigarettes than Alicia Silverstone’s clothes in _Clueless_ .

He doesn’t let go of your hand. The nail of his thumb is tracing patterns in your palm and it’s achingly tender and the faintest bit teasing and just enough to grip his hand a little harder than necessary and you ponder how you can exact revenge for his antics.

Rummaging complete, he turns to face you. He’s serious. You can see it in his eyes — they’ve changed — they’re a more delicate shade of blue now, more like glinting sapphire than cerulean — Ben turns so you’re in between him and the car. His hair, too, has changed color, more copper-toned with flecks of gold. You like it better like that, and you tell him so.

“one thing left.”

“What’s that?” you hope you don’t sound breathless. Or maybe you do, and you decide you don’t care. He’s probably going to kiss you anyway. What’s the sense in not telling him you want him to, with all the ladylike weapons you have in your arsenal? He’s nervous now. His thumb has stilled. Ben’s eyes are the color of the sea before a storm, a rippling kaleidoscope of blues and half-greens.

still, he smiles, and it reaches those tempestuous eyes, crinkling and compressing their thunder and lighting around the edges.

a kiss imprinted on your knuckles — his mouth against you — a tongue grazes over your skin, tasting for the first time — you stare unabashedly — the heat has reached your cheeks now, and you don’t even care — his thumb replaces his mouth now, drifting over you the peaks and valleys of your hand.

“May you permit me?” He murmurs gingerly, echoing your previous words with obstinate formality.

and you, too, mimic him, simply nodding. Your hands drop as he leans forward and —

Oh.

the pressure of his lips on yours is feather-light. It’s seeking. Reassuring. Gentle. Exploratory.

But you do not want gentle. You are too far gone for that.

Your tongue insistently licks the seam of his lips and his gasp of surprise gains you entrance to his mouth — he retaliates with a gentle nip on your lower lip — hands move — now on his stubbly cheeks, now threading through his hair — tugging, grasping for purchase for your own stability as much as for pleasure.

he moans again when your fingers rake his scalp and his hands go to your hips, skimming under his oversized t-shirt and gripping your waist, holding you in place even as your legs seem to fall open of their own accord, at this juncture when instinct and pleasure formulate a compound, a melange, a hydrogen bond with irrationally high ionization energy.

Ben’s tongue delves into your mouth ((dominance)) and his chest brushes against yours and he tips his head to get a better angle while his left hand abandons its station on your hip and traverses bare skin, hiking upwards. a mewl erupts from the back of your throat.

he’s migrated to kissing — biting, really — your neck — your head has fallen back against the warm metal of the car — eyes fluttered shut — hands in his hair, scraping at his bare back — fuck, he’s good — it’s not enough —

a car horn startles the both of you. he lifts his head, blinking as though he’s been rudely jolted awake from an REM state. Ben eventually straightens and you follow suit, gathering yourself off the car and twiddling with the edges of your braid.

It’s you who laughs first ((laughing with swollen lips)) and you’re so glad you do. Ben smiles again, that jaw-dropping display of warmth and aliveness it makes your heart skip a ((non-proverbial)) beat. that’s happened so many times in the last few minutes you can’t believe you have yet to pass out.

He presses a kiss to the corner of your mouth. “ready to get out of here?” a kiss to your cheek. “for real this time?” another to your nose. His eyelashes brush up against your skin — left breathless at the simple intimacy.

you beam up at him. “yes, Ben. I’m ready.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which you and Ben discover that nothing is like the first time, but maybe time is a construct anyway

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> References for allusions made in both chapters can be found [ here.](https://corellians-only.tumblr.com/breathlessref)

[part two]

“my curfew’s at midnight.”

Ben doesn’t look at you when he speaks. Well, he does. Just not right now. He’s busy at the moment, tinkering with something in the hood of his car. hunter green t-shirt — auburn hair — something out of goddamn salinger novel ((or maybe dos passos))

you look up at him. you’re settled on a skateboard ((he’s far too trusting of your ability to remain upright)). listless currents from a fan — somewhere, in the garage, you think — ripple in that nomadic space between his t-shirt and your skin.

remarks are so curious a thing, and you watch yours descend upon him. not quite a cascade. not quite a pittance of cleansing summer rains. it’s something other — but not ethereal — it’s here, it’s now, it’s taking you, too, holding you in thrall — words bump into skin ((sinew and sin)).

“it’s about doing the right thing.” the grind of one metal locking its relatives, corollaries, corrosions, into place has ceased. or maybe only paused. you’re not sure the car is done. but Ben looks at you, and you know he’s done. done explaining himself.

the skateboard’s wheels squeak and cry out against the pavement when you adjust. legs stretched out — ragged vans pointing above ((wherever that is)) — violet tipped hands clutching the back edges — knees exposed — just kissing the faintness of tangible ((affection or affectations, what’s the difference?))

“i know.” freckles gaze into the sun, his eyes, reflections. he expects your explanation to be plaintive. institutional. it’s not. “i just wanted to know why.”

Ben shakes his head, once, twice, thrice — face still half-soaked in the shadow of the hood — astonishment is plain to see in the flatness of his cheeks — the waltzing of his tongue on his upper lip.

Two seconds later he is right there, crouching ((muscles straining)) next to you, the leather tips of air jordans exotic and smooth against the external lateral bone of your left knee. His eyes, screwed up at the invasion of the sun against their tranquility, stare at the meeting of his shoes and your body and then he is gazing at you.

angels manipulate his mouth into a smile — Ben’s yours, now — hands are clasped — battles halt in the ceasefire. “I should really stop underestimating you.”

Ben reaches out. Two fingers ride the length of your cheekbone. They still as skin morphs into frizzled, sun-bleached hair at the crown of your head, in that space between your ear and eyebrow. your head nudges into his terms of surrender. “That would probably be best,” you say. The pause between conditional tense and adverb is like the space between you and him, an assured hesitancy, caught between becoming and being, trapped in an interstitial existence.

it’s so fucking americana it _hurts_.

hair , secured by a scrunchie the same shade as your fingertips, is given a light tug. let’s get you home, he says, and your presence wilts in upon itself , he senses the rush of photosynthesis exiting your body and brings your lips to caress his.

it doesn’t feel like the first time — nothing ever does — familiar in semantics — murky in meaning — singeing and sweet — a transfusion of significance between you and him.

the breaking away comes with a solemn sigh. he’s rising and bringing you with him. you resist the urge to stage a coup and use the skateboard to rocket yourself into his arms ((a safehouse you’ve found)).

___

time: a nebulous concept for you. it’s pages dogeared and how many days until the next cd is shipped to the store and how many t-shirts you’ve accosted from oaken drawers.

it’s a far more solid object for him. a tangible weave of textures and patterns that he notices in the scrunchies now in the car’s island of misfits ((he still hasn’t told you the make and model)) and how many times you guide his hand around your waist while you eat ice cream ((vanilla in a cone with sprinkles)) and the pens he’s busted through since you first met ((he knows the number , they’re immortalized in a tin cup on his shelf))

Ben’s holding one that has yet to join its brothers in the tin graveyard. The clicker rests against his teeth. It looks seductive in his mouth. Like he can make you keen with just an imitation of the real thing, with words and ideas. Words twirled around the air have power. You both know this.

You’re the one who’s twirling, though. spinning around his bedroom — boombox emitting a Billy Joel song at least ten years mature — mouth forming words you have yet to possess the courage to blare — so much like your kisses.

((the words come through in the translation , the body moves but he hears the soul))

he watches you and he is transfixed. he knows you do not know how much you are revealing to him. at least not consciously. but you want him to crawl into your soul and never leave. he does not see it or hear it or feel it as much as he experiences truth, the clumsy trio dotting patterns across his extremities and seeping into his essence ((what it means to be human)) like an antibiotic ointment. he is scared you will stick to things for which you are not designed. but it’s too late and he’s covered in the stuff, slick with you. unleashed in a trigonometric function of three sides ((him / you , other)). sins and signs and echoing sunlight.

your smile mimics his as you edge toward the bed where he’s sprawled out. you laugh and he matches you, shaking his head in rare & unguarded ((unabashed , unembarrassed)) regard. you are in harmony.

skin meets skin — heels arched into the carpet — he’s too strong too stubborn — and you fail and fall and spill over him — tumbling over his torso, legs mashed — the heat of his victorious grin burns the atmospheric bubble arching over the two of you.

You’re not sure if the record stops or if you’ve just ceased hearing it. he arranges you ((like a bouquet, like a song)) on the bed. he stares down at you. the eyes are stormy again, like before he kissed you the first time ((but nothing’s ever like the first time)). they say eyes are the window to the soul. Your hands whisk the hair that’s dangling there, like you can quiet him by quelling his independently-minded locks. it seems to work. he blinks and when you see the sun again it’s brighter, bluer, but maybe that’s because he’s so still now.

he does not move. He may not have danced but his soul is pressing into you like a dagger ((did you fall on a sword)). Ben cuts off your impending speech with conciliatory kiss. “i know , darling” , and the words etch themselves into reality against your body.

—-

Ben is distant and he is near to you all at once. There are corners of his being that you want to slide and drag and push to the surface. maybe if you do he will start to make sense. form follows function, he tells you, and the words feel as yellow as the pages on which they’re inked.

it doesn’t make sense to you — _“you have too much sense, dear one”_ — elinor and marianne — but for all his purity he does not dance — no ricochets in his lever and pulley soul.

you are glass and flannel and he is steel and silk. he is not quite your sun, or your moon, or your stars, and not even your world. but you are rapidly terraforming to his sundry heights and arid permafrost and the devil’s sun that makes a home in his fingers, in his mouth ((yet he is not lucifer, nor abdiel perhaps he is raphael)).

Ben watches you soak in him. He takes note, n.b., nota bene, notes well, excellently, the stillness of your hands ((the tremors have lessened, but have they learned?)). your words are teal and vermillion and ecru and weeping with tannins. Ben deduces ease, easel, paint, art as you furrow into his chest. His mind infers souls through their bodies. Form follows function. Function follows form. Maybe it’s all the same, and Maybe It Isn’t.

Through your mirror he sees himself with you but he does not comprehend. He is bewildered.

nails boards cones sheets — teeth fingers knees breath — swerving form yielding function clutching grasping — all so very , sine qua non — aspectu sine logos — why does the latin transform into Greek

Morpheus, he thinks, nods sagely. he hurls ticket stubs and lipstick napkins and sense ((you)) into shoeboxes and mailboxes and shadowboxes. he refuses a photo of you, with you, for you and takes your knotted eyes and throws them, too, into the nearest body of water. you are close but you are not near ((droplets on tanned skin, drowning in the water)) and it is all he can do to obey his life and he does not know that sartre laughs at him and de beauvoir pokes her lover.

you are not at the middle of your life and neither is he. the path is still obscured by the trees. is charon delivering you to this threshold of the styx ((stones, bones, death)) or the tip of the world where the stars scrape into the heavens with a different edge? _he is rising: he brings you with him._ so it was in the past, but does the past presage the future? if he is raphael then he is virgil _((Maybe it’s all the same, and Maybe It Isn’t))_

epic firestorm of righteous creation myths — empirical histories — imperial truths. but no. dante, where is dante, is he off in firenze, dancing in florid colors? no. dante is in exile, _civitas ex nihilo_ : in need of virgil. guide him to transcendence.

____

you do not see him for several days. maybe it is weeks. you aren’t sure. time is not empirical, Ben has told you, it’s something you have to feel through its measuring ((sometimes vibrancy tips out of his ridges)). but you wish he had let you take a picture of the two of you. you are more like him than you realize , the truest truths are the ones you can touch.

it is the longest you have not seen him, and it is very hot. the pool, the lake, they’re not the same when you can’t thread sand through his hair and be abducted by his gaze as you read ((spirited away from his bookshelf)).

you’re running out of books — running out of time? — but time is not statistical — multidimensionality of you and him — there is no space where he does not compress himself to exist with you.

“it’s not a phase, mom,” you say, and take another bite of cereal.

“you need to make up your mind.” the crunch is effective at blocking out the noise, and your mind continues on its path. you wonder if DJ Tanner ever felt like this. hair surfaces in your bowl, and you pluck it out, grimacing. Maybe you should cut your hair. it’s hot out. DJ had short hair.

a rap on the table — spoon? knuckle? you can’t tell — strikes you. the words _reality_ and _wake up_ and _decisions_ and _wasteful_ are abrasions on your knees, still sore from too many tries on Ben’s skateboard ((he had smiled at your earnestness and kissed away the latent tears , let your body do its healing)).

you do not speak words so much as you give birth to emotions, agonizing and cruel and hideous. you do not know what you say or if you even say it ((dissociation)). but it is metallic in your mouth and turncoat shaking fingers and the sinking sound of unharnessed emotion in your ears.

it is hot and stifling and too much when you leave. nothing is feeling right — that stillness has lodged in your diaphragm again — opaque skies mock you — rain comes and you are colliding with nature and you are _losing_

Ben is standing underneath the overhang at the library ((it always comes back to the library)) and you wonder if you’re finally hallucinating. you voice forms itself to his name and he turns, damp hair following a few seconds later, and he drops his cigarette at the sight of you.

Exhilaration delivers specks of mud on your legs and arms but it is no matter. the time and space continuum has rectified and he is in front of you, giving you a cigarette, gray t-shirt abstracting to his muscles as much as your vans cling languidly to soggy toes.

he exhales smoke the way he says your name. it is precise and pious and it blooms over you like pink and purple hydrangeas.

Ben sees the gouges in your eyes and chastises your traitorous hands and absorbs you. cigarettes slump, abandoned, as he presses your cheek to his heart ((the conjunction of your logic and heat meeting his fervent center)). you cling to him and he does not resist but molds himself to you. time stops ((it’s an illusion)). rain continues. Ben’s kisses glide along your hairline, your forehead. it tickles and you laugh and his smile takes shape against your frontal cortex.

you pull him into the rain even as he protests ((but he’s laughing and the clouds pause, time takes a breath , are you time)) and you kiss him. it is like something breaks in him or perhaps the rain has induced erosion or maybe he is like you and there is a filigree thread connecting his head with his heart and constructing a railway through his body. Ben is all the lightning — the sky has crowned a new Zeus — you hold him as the thunder in his soul cracks and pulls

((maybe kant was wrong about time and heidegger was right about dwelling and nothing crystallizes in his soul like you do))

the two of you alight to his car ((still unknown yet cordial, native)) and when you reach his building he opens your door and scoops you up in his arms and it is like that first time by the pool ((but nothing is ever like the first time)).

your hand makes a fist in his soggy shirt and his hair is pasted to his forehead and you cannot censor the searing, violent, desideratum swooping over you ((nor can you pause the absurd laugh that gushes out of your heart at his display of exorbitant chivalry)).

“i can walk,” you say as he wades through water that’s now folding over his skin, lapping up his electrolytes.

“yes, dearest, but you can’t swim, can you?” he likes to respond with questions, but this one’s an answer. Ben’s clutching you so tightly that you can’t see his face but you feel the contentment in his tone—it dashes into you like the rain currently encompassing the Earth, hesitant with the effort of exertion, with the weight of metal souls. “I’m just preemptively forbidding a disaster, darling.” there’s a tenderness bridging Ben’s raw power and mischievousness — the network protrudes — extracorporeal ((does he know?))

He cherishes the rain, Ben tells you later, when existence reduces to you and him and incandescent petrichor and the pasticcio of kisses, heartbeats, palms on skin.

___

Ben is not carefree, but he is not serious. it is like he has learned that he can take up space ((empirical)). there is less constriction, tension, stenosis in his body ((the filigree is stretching his limbs)). movements are not languid but nor are they demonstrations of correctness. not slouching — just _not strictly upright_.

your hair gets tangled, like his sheets, like his legs in yours, and you tell him you want to cut it. An auburn eyebrow lifts archly, and he runs a finger down the length of your arm, tracing the veins ((your life)). “how will I teach you how to swim if you chop off your legs, darling?” Ben’s voice is charcoal. gray, yellow red orange burning, glowing at the edges. He draws up blueprints for cities in your open palm.

You make a quip about the ship of state and he snorts. When he shakes his head, his other hand — the one not serving as an architect on your body — shags through his hair, tanned skin meeting with copper effervescence in a ragged tryst. “i like its hows” he murmurs against your lips and you cannot protest, not when his caustic tongue ices, soothes, pacifies your conflagration.

The two of you are at the pool, again. He’s on his break. The air’s circulation is viscous, shoving over your skins. It straps you in — like the fanny pack around his waist. Ben’s donned his lifeguard pack for work, swapping out his array of gauche accessories for the traditional red and white accoutrement now fastened at his hips.

the most important things in his life, Ben thinks as he inhales the light spice of a Malboro, start with “l”. learning, lady, library, liberty, lake, logos, love. he doesn’t know from where last word originates; he must learn _((connaître ou savoir?))._ in his experience, there’s no such thing as luck. He feels like a character in one of those war movies filmed right before he was born, smoking lucky strikes in a foxhole and just trying to stay alive, goddamnit, just trying to get through the war.

The two of you are always watching each each other. The obtuse phenomenology plays out like a courtly masquerade. _veritas, quid est veritas,_ for here both object and deception are degrees of truth. He smirks around the cigarette and you blush but your eyes hold his and you catch his approval and stuff it inside your heart.

Ben takes your hand and places it on his thigh as you speak. the two of you are straddling a lacquered yellow beach chair, offensive in its self-confidence. he leans forward and touches his forehead to yours. he likes to take initiative — he is making use of his knowledge, he told you once, mumbled and sleepy, when you had whispered the question against his shoulder late one night.

Ben brings himself nearer to you. sweat — splashes — dangling exertions — smoke — sunscreen. it all plays about your lips and in your blood and in his hands that keep yours pressed against his flesh. someone yells at him to get his ass back to work and Ben rolls his eyes.

“duty calls.” his actions, the chair: they embolden you to dip your voice, your thoughts, mayhap you actions to a lower register.

He ducks his head to peer at your face, like that first time when you were falling over ((but nothing is like the first time)). as he passes the remainder of the cigarette to you, the words he speak sound like him, carry his weight, refracted starlight from coal. “we all have a duty. even you.” Ben doesn’t need to say his duties; they are his life, his schedule, the notebooks in haphazard stacks under the bed, his tin cups of pens. you wonder if you are part of his list ((if the cables have let you traverse the journey from his heart to his head)).

when you tell him that he is diamond but you a like one of those new gems they make in labs — what are they called — moissanite, he shakes his head. “you are not so scientific, darling.” fingers squeeze yours. “you are burning skies and delimitations and biting stars — the most natural things that exist.”

((you are not sure if you believe him, because nothing is like the first time)).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a massive thank you to everyone who has read, reviewed, left kudos, etc. i really do pour my heart into everything i write and it's so lovely to know you guys are enjoying it too :) requests/chats/asks about this fic, SW, or life in general are open over on [tumblr](https://corellians-only.tumblr.com/)


	3. book sale

The library book sale is Ben Kenobi’s favorite school event of the year. He told you so, last week, when the colorful banner had caught his eye and he gasps, his free hand — the one not fingering the cigarette — flew to his mouth.

“The book sale!” he had said, turning his head to meet your eyes. They had been so blue that day, almost translucent against the darkened clouds and the navy of his pocket tee. You almost gasped yourself at the intensity of their tincture.

“It happens every year,” you had spluttered after a momentary pause. “You know, you can go to a bookstore any day of the week and get a book, right?”

Ben paused, halting his pace. He shifted his body to stare at you directly, so that the two of you made a perfect example of a perpendicular lines — horizontal and vertical, meeting at the same point. “I pity you, dearest,” he said slowly, his melodic voice suffused with admonition. Were it not for the crinkle of his eyes, you would have thought that he was reprimanding you.

“This” — he had pointed to the banner with his free hand, the one not holding the cigarette — “is more than just books.”

“Well, explain it to me, then!” Your exclamation was animated and you spread you palms in front of you in a jabbing motion to emphasize your statement.

He smiled. This was clearly the reaction he wanted. Ben stepped closer to the sign and examined it, taking a drag from his cigarette. Another smile, this one more intimate, unguarded, sprang from his lips.

“The library book sale is special,” he began. “So many books that you can’t find elsewhere? You know where you find them?” He looked at you and you shrugged. “The library.”

“So, you like to go because you can find rare books?” you hazard a guess. “I’d would have pegged you for a rare book guy. I mean” — you permit you eyes to sweep down his compact form and trail off.

He frowns and a spasm of something unidentifiable glares in your chest at the realization that you have misunderstood him.

“That’s not what I meant,” you protested hastily. The words spilled out of you, like if you said them fast enough, he would have caught the contrition now bubbling up, like a carbonated drink when it’s shaken.

He looked away and ignored the apology. Out of annoyance, or righteousness, you weren’t sure. “Well, at any rate, they do have rare books, out of print articles or studies, books about art, architecture, science, copies with annotations, or even new books that are expensive to buy now.”

“I’d like it if we could go together.” The statement surprised both you and him, but he nodded and sent a soft half-smile your way. It was like a salve, smearing across a fresh burn.

Ben peered at the announcement, crinkling his eyes. Something about it made him swear under his breath. “Well, maybe you can go and tell me about it later.” The words were heavy in the humid air, thumping into the atmosphere. “I have work.”

“No!”

“Afraid so.” He glanced at his watch. “Look, I have to go. Have to go pick up some new parts for the car. But I’ll see you later, okay? Maybe tomorrow, after my shift?” He dropped a kiss to your forehead, thumbs stroking your arms briefly. Ben passed you the cigarette (like he always does) and then strode away, looking back with an impish wink.

___

You do see him tomorrow. You’re back in his garage sitting on the skateboard, like in those heady days of heat and running and kisses. Ben’s leaning over the popped hood, fiddling with — well, whatever it is that’s in there. He still hasn’t revealed what kind of car he drives, but it’s stopped bothering you. Mostly.

The two of you are quiet, letting the sound of Ben’s favorite mixtape speak for you amid his mumbled explanations and gentle curses. After a particularly colorful extraction, you laugh, and he looks up, chestnut hair framing his face.

“What’s so funny, darling?” Ben demands, but his mouth forms the words upwards in tone, in heart, and you laugh harder, shaking your head. His shirt is soaked with sweat.

“Nothing.” But your answer is insufficient, and he traverses the space barring you and him in a stride more akin to a jog and pulls you up to meet him.

He kisses you. It is — oh lord — it is urgent and fiery and ambitious. It is his hands gripping at the skin that stretches over your hips and his tongue gliding over the roof of your mouth and it is his heart roaring against your aching chest and it is his lips never yielding, not even when you moan his name into his mouth.

When Ben finally drags his skin away from yours, you are both gasping for oxygen, trying to shove as much of the stuff down you airways as possible through swollen, red lips.

Ben kisses your cheek. “What were you saying, baby? I got distracted.” He takes a step back and lights a cigarette.

“I forget,” you breath, eyes wide and dilated, and he smirks around the cigarette. It reaches his eyes, though, and when he exhales he stares at you like if you do not, you will drift away like the smoke.

It is then that you remember. “I have something for you!” you say, and kneel down to rummage in your bag. You emerge with a trio of books and he kneels beside you, flipping through their pages with an practiced touch.

“Bukowski? Chomsky? And…the Iliad?” confusion tones his voice, but not unpleasantly so. He’s curious. 

“It made me think of you,” you confess, a finger skimming the edge of the skateboard. “I don’t know, I just, they seemed like things would like to read.”

“These have been on my list for ages,” he admits, continuing to regard the tomes reverently, smoke curling away from his mouth.

“It always comes back to the library, doesn’t it?” you muse, and he’s the one who laughs.

“C’mere,” Ben beckons, settling you between his legs. “I’ll read them to you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you celebrate, merry christmas! i can be found on tumblr over at filthybookworm :)

**Author's Note:**

> this was a prompt request for my dear friend afogocado (go check out her work here on AO3 or on tumblr!) I would love to hear your thoughts on this one -- I tremendous amount of fun with it! As always, I'm available on tumblr. -xx


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